After insurgents launched multiple, simultaneous attacks inside Kabul’s government and diplomatic areas on April 15, many in the media were quick to label the attacks as a “Taliban Tet Offensive”. The media’s reference was to the 1968 Tet Offensive, which involved tens of thousands of North Vietnamese regulars and thousands of Viet Cong irregulars. The communist guerillas attacked the length and breadth of South Vietnam from Hue in the north, to the Mekong Delta to the American Embassy in Saigon (Garamone, 2012).

The ongoing drought in the Midwest has affected approximately 80 percent of the U.S. corn crop and more than 11 percent of the soybean crop, triggering a rise in global food prices (RFE/RL) that CFR's Isobel Coleman says may fuel political instability in developing countries. The United States produces approximately 35 percent of the world's corn and soybean supply, commodities that are "crucial in the food chain, because they are used for feed stock for animals," Coleman says.

"What has been the whole outcome of these drone attacks is that you have directly or indirectly contributed to destabilizing or undermining the democratic government. Because people really make fun of the democratic government – when you pass a resolution against drone attacks in the parliament and nothing happens. The Americans don't listen to you, and they continue to violate your territory," he said.

"Culture does matter,” insisted aspiring Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on his return from a three nation trip abroad this week. Readers of Culture Posts and Winnowing Fan surely share the belief. Yet Mr. Romney's words, first spoken at a political fundraiser in Jerusalem's King David hotel, shocked our sensibilities. How and where he spoke the words "culture makes all the difference" revealed the limits of his world. The Culture Post series began with the intent to explore the cultural underbelly of public diplomacy.

In an effort to harness the “soft power” of diaspora groups, the U.S. Department of State and USAID recently convened more than 500 United States residents with heritage from 124 countries for the second annual Global Diaspora Forum.

“I always begin with, well, what is this nation about?” she said. Most people hesitate to go there, presumably for fear of offending this group or that, or because in a nation as diverse as America definition is not easy. However, reaching for a definition based on ideas and national principles, Sonenshine gave U.S. public diplomacy a basis for a strong mission statement: